


Working Lunches

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Whatever You Love Best [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: All dogs are good dogs, Fluff, Found Family, Lunch, Other, Outtakes, from Bella Mulier Qui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: This is a place to house outtakes and other fun snippets that didn't make it into Bella, mulier qui, or bits that I wanted to write but didn't have space for etc. No real plot or story arc, just people from the Bella, mulier qui story (and other JCT universe people) having lunch together or making plans to have lunch together, etc etc. Will be updated sporadically but there's not real "plot" so I'm marking it complete. Not in chronologic order.
Relationships: Bells Teixeira/Lawrence Haywood
Series: Whatever You Love Best [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980923
Comments: 82
Kudos: 126





	1. Camilla

Camilla is sitting in her hotel lobby in Belgrade when she sees the woman walk past. She shoves her laptop bag into Darragh’s lap and says “Hold this.”

“Where you off to?” he asks

“I just saw someone… who…” She doesn’t finish, she’s already following the woman out of the hotel doors. “Ms. Teixeira?”

The woman stops and turns. She’s impeccably dressed. She smells, as a breeze blows past them, very faintly of jasmine. Camilla smiles and holds out her hand. “Camilla Barr. I have been following your work with a lot of interest.” 

Bells Teixeira’s smile is polite but distant. “Ms. Barr, I apologize, but I don’t speak to press without an appointment. If it’s related to UN matters, you can contact my team's office, or, if it’s related to anything else, my agent--”

“I’m not looking for an interview.”

Bells smiles again and opens the car door waiting for her. “Have a good afternoon, Ms. Barr.”

“Wait! I know your husband.” 

Bells pauses. She gets in the car. She looks up at Camilla. “Well, get in then."

When the door shuts, Camilla buckles her seatbelt. Bells says, “I’m going to lunch. Do you want to join me?”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Barr, I feel compelled to tell you that if you are thinking about writing anything about my husband, his image, name, likeness, intellectual property, and thoughts on the weather are trademarked.” 

“I know, I looked that up. Do you know what else I looked up?”

“Ms. Barr. This conversation is beginning to make me feel like I need to pull out an NDA.”

“Last year a US senator from Virginia who had been in office for decades lost his seat in an upset to a 29 year old Progressive Party candidate.”

“How interesting. I’m actually Canadian, though, so--” 

“The Senator was the chair of the armed forces committee. His son is your husband. The interesting thing. The interesting thing is that one of the largest donors to the campaign of his opponent was you. You and Grant Hellermann.” 

Bells Teixeira opens her bag and pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to Camilla. Camilla reads it over. Bells regards her steadily.

“You just carry non-disclosure agreements around in your purse?”

“My entire family is famous.” 

“Fair enough.” Camilla signs it and hands it back. “I just…. I’m not trying to get a scoop,” she says. “Hayes is a friend, I guess you could say. When he said he was married to you... Why did you work so hard to get your father-in-law out of office?”

“To call him my father-in-law implies that he deserves to be called a father. He does not.” 

"Ok," Camilla says, nodding to herself, her mind made. "All right. I just had to check."

For the first time since they had spoken, Bells Teixeira’s eyes warm a little, and her mask drops just a bit. 

"Thank you," she says, "for checking."

The car drops them off at a little place and they eat on the patio in the back. Bells Teixeira makes small talk. She talks sports -- international ice hockey competitions, curling, longboard dancing. She talks fondly about the surfing in Bora Bora. Eventually they wind their way back to Captain Haywood and Camilla finds herself telling her about the birthday ball, and by that time Bells has loosened along all her edges, cheeks warm with sun and half a glass of white wine, a little bit of sweat along her collarbone and brow, hair just ruffled by the wind, smiling with her whole face, like she means it, when she tells a story about Haywood dancing. 

Camilla sets down her fork, feeling like she's on the edge of a precipice, a little. A leap. She says, "Here's what I really wanted to talk about."

"I'm listening. "

"Nestle.”

“Ah,” Bells says.

"You've seen it. I've seen it. I've seen all your work but you can't get any headway. They keep blocking your every move. You need help."

"Ms. Barr, are we scheming? Are you inviting me into a scheme?"

"I am."

"Well, I'm still listening, tell me more."


	2. Reckless

Damian doesn’t know if he’d be holding together if it wasn’t for Reckless. A year after that day, and he’s still waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. The difference, of course, is that 2 months ago, when he woke up like that, he couldn’t get back to sleep. He’d lie in bed, terrified, his fear-drenched brain sure that every little sound he heard, the sound of a drunk group of friends walking down the street after a night out outside his window, a car horn, his neighbor coming home and fumbling with his keys on the other of the hall from Damian’s door, all of it, in the middle of the night, sounded like danger. 

Now, when he wakes up, and he sees Reckless sleeping next to him, snoring, he goes back to sleep. If it was someone trying to break in, Reckless would know, and she wouldn’t be asleep, she’d be protecting him. After all, it was Reckless who’d saved him before. When the embassy was overrun, it was Reckless who’d stood between him and a group of very angry people with very big guns. When he’d heard that she was being retired, he’d pulled every string he could to be the one to take her home. Her deceased handler hadn’t had much family, no one who wanted or could take her, and so she’d gone home with Damian. 

Some days he thinks Reckless is his only friend. After the Embassy, Damian didn’t think he could go back to an overseas post. Maybe he just wasn’t suited to foreign diplomacy after all. Maybe he should just stay at home. His therapist had talked him out of a lot of those doubts and fears over the past year, but even though the Foreign Service Office had offered him another overseas post, he’d taken instead the offer to work at the UN office in New York. New York was home. New York he knew how to deal with. 

For all Reckless is the best dog he could ever ask for, for all the help she’s been in his making progress, she’s not exactly the sort of dog that’s good for _making friends_ , though. And while Damian could probably find some people he went to highschool with, if he tried, that seems an awfully long time ago. Most of his friends from college and internships are in D.C now, or Seattle. Most days, it’s him and Reckless, and Reckless isn’t the sort of dog you take to a dog park. She’s not the sort of dog that pretty young women rush over to coo at. In fact, quite often, people cross to the other side of the street, especially if they have a dog of their own. 

Something about the glint of her titanium canines, or the scar over her eyebrow, fit for any stoic and gruff movie antihero, or the forward attention of her ears or the way she walks at perfect attention, right at his heel (Damian’s suspects that Reckless still thinks of their walks as patrols), that tells people to be wary. She’s an extremely good dog though. She’s not _great_ with other dogs, but she’d never lunged at one unprovoked. She tolerates pets from children and adults alike if they dare. She’s a shameless beggar for any sort of food, especially when they’re at home. She sleeps curled up next to him on the couch and sheds all over his furniture and his suits. She snores and barks at squirrels and loves to watch the birds out his office window and wags her tail whenever he gets the leash for walkies, even if she walks at his heel like she’s still on duty.

Which is why he is _completely_ surprised when today, while he’s walking through Central Park she lifts her head like she caught a scent in the air, and then _pulls_. Head low, shoulders forward, dragging him along behind her as she follows the scent. She’s always been so good on a leash--he’s never felt what it’s like for her to pull before, and he realizes, with alarm, that there is absolutely no way he’s strong enough to stop her. She’s 100 pounds of wardog. If she wants to go in this direction, he realizes, they’re going in that direction. 

“Reckless!” he says in utter embarrassment and horror when where they’re going turns out to be head first into a pretty young woman jogging on her own. “Reckless! Bad! No!” he says as Reckless pushes her snout straight into the girl’s crotch. Oh god. He’s going to die of embarrassment. “Reckless! What is wrong with you???”

“Oh hey! It’s okay, baby girl.” The jogger laughs, stepping back away from Reckless and petting her head. “Aren’t you friendly.”

“I’m so sorry, she’s normally so much better behaved. Reckless, where are your manners??”

“Wait, Reckless?” The woman looks up at him and down at the dog and then starts laughing. She goes slightly pink across her nose. She squats down eye level with Reckless. “Is this 1st Lieutenant Reckless?” She runs her fingers over Reckless’s snout, “Look at those teeth, yes, you are, huh, girl?”

“Um, yes, she is. Are you…”

“My husband’s Captain Haywood, she probably recognizes his scent. I’ve seen pictures of her before.”

“Oh!” Damian met Captain Haywood only a few months ago, at Reckless’s medal ceremony. Haywood hadn’t been part of the group that had evacuated them from the embassy, but he’d heard lots of stories. “I was part of the diplomatic office that was evacuated… um... when Reckless...”

She looks up at him, “I heard a little bit about that.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Bells Teixeira.”

“Damian Uehling.” 

“Nice to meet you, Damian.” She stands back up and brushes off her leggings. “So you worked at the Embassy?”

“I did, but I’m not overseas any more. I work in the UN building these days.”

Her eyebrows lift. “I do too, actually.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” He hasn’t seen her before, but that doesn’t mean anything of course, it’s a big building. 

“I work on the labor law team.” 

“Oh, that explains why we haven’t run into each other. I’m still technically part of the US FS, they’ve just got me working there now.”

“Huh. You know, I would love to talk shop with you sometimes, I have a project I’ve been working on, and it’d be nice to have a contact in that office.”

“We should get lunch next week sometimes -- I normally go to the Jamaican food truck for lunch, but sometimes I walk the other direction and get a gyro instead.” 

“I’ve got a meeting Monday, but Tuesday, you, me, Reckless, and those meat pies?”

“Sounds good. I look forward to it.”

“Great!” She gestures at the band on her wrist. “All right, well, gotta keep my heart rate up--bye Damian, nice to meet you!”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks to Dangercupcake for correcting my terrible punctuation. Everyone in this is fictional, please don't post any of my works on other sites like Good Reads but feel free to write/do whatever transformative works you want in the Superstition universe.


End file.
